Roses have Thorns
by Wolf of the Dark Lolita
Summary: Roseshadow, now an elder, is close to joining Starclan. She has had a life full of adventure and tragedy and with the last of her strength is passing on her knowledge . . .
1. Prologue

**Roses have Thorns**

_Wolf of the Dark Lolita_

_-Prologue- _

"That'll never be you," I remember my mother saying as we walked away from the cave in which I had been born. Her words and tone were harsh, as though she was not talking to her own kits but instead something hoarser, like scraping her tongue across the bark of a dead tree. The cave held within it my father, staring helplessly with empty eyes, as though the sentence had managed to travel back to him through the wind. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had heard though, he was a great listener. That's what he stood there doing now. Always listening. It wasn't like he could protest or say a word to sway my mother, no, it was a physical impossibility for him as he'd never spoken a thing in his life. Now was no different, he could not, even to keep the ones he loved close to him. So he had no choice but to listen and watch as we scrabbled away, raking our feeble claws through his heart as we did so.

Oh, it weren't as though my mother despised him for his disability. Quite the opposite, in fact. The main reason she'd fallen in love with him in the first place was because he was the '_mysterious, silent_ type' that she had always longed for. She'd tell me the reason she left him was that, after a while, she saw him not as the listener that he was, but as though she was merely talking to a leaf that would only ever react with a quick twitch caused by the breath of her words. More forced then anything. So she grew bored with him and tossed him to the wind as she abandoned him and his feelings. I know the truth, though. It was not my father she grew bored with, it was what they had. At one time, it had been a life full of danger and romance. He would sneak out at moon high to meet her, running so fast the breeze could not even catch up to his paws. Although, in the end, he abandoned his old life for what he thought was freedom, but what was actually entrapment - to my mother. There was nothing more forbidden then to love a cat from a clan and when he was that no longer, she had lost interest.

My father was everything you would want in a clan cat; a warrior is what they called them. His silence is what brought the leader peace. There was no worry of him betraying their secrets, not a complaint out of his mouth and never said a word against him. He was ensured loyalty, no questions asked. So, instead of hunting and fighting as any other tom his age would, he spent his time in the murky depths of the leader's den, having the troubles of the leader fed into him like rising fire. Oh, it was a great way for their leader to let off what was on his mind, but each word was forced into my father's head like a rock against his skull. There was so much heaped up inside him, that is was bound to erupt like a spewing volcano. Though, in my father's case, it was not in a bout of irrational violence, but instead through loving my mother. To do something this disloyal and rebellious was all he could do. So that's why he ran away and that's why he had to go crawling back.

My mother must have been insane to drag us out of that cave. Our eyes had barely opened and we stumbled along, mewling as our first taste of the mighty wind lashed at us. Perhaps, if she'd left us to grow up with our father, we'd have grown use to the power of Windclan, but for us to be hit with such a force so suddenly, it would have been no surprise if we'd been swept right off the moors. Though, she would risk it, she would dismiss our troubles, because each of us held a little part of our father within us. Whether it was my sisters' eyes, my brother's build or my very own pelt, she could only see a reflection of that which she no longer loved. Do not think poorly of her though, she was a confused young rogue with four new-born kits trailing at her ankles. Though, that number soon dwindled to three.

I'd give anything to go back and swipe my mother over the ears for being so mouse-brained. Of course something was bound to happen to us. Not a thought of hers was to where we were going, as long as it was away from all clan cats. My mother held nothing against my father except simply what he was. At first, she had thought he was a rogue like her; she was never one for thinking, but then she was led to a discovery and his rank dawned upon her like a secret unfolded. The scent of so many she-cats on his pelt; she'd been suspicious at first. Then she followed him back just as the cracks of dawn filtered through the skeletons of the trees and found his home. She was quickly chased off though, to think of a rogue to come wandering through their territory! It disgusted them. So even though the wounds of their attack healed, her thoughts festered.

I don't think she'd even given us names when she marched us off on that bizarre journey. My father had done so mentally, but there was of course no way of sharing them with her. He still thought they were in love, being dragged on like a fool. It wasn't far into the journey that my sister was swooped at by a hawk. I don't know how I remember, but I can still hear her squeals, the glint of the creature's talons as they scratched across her kit-soft pelt and the beating of heavy wings as she was spirited away by the dreadful thing. I think that's when my mother knew we needed to be protected. I think it was the first feeling of compassion she had for us. She grew to love us for what we were was because after all, we were as much of her as our father was of us.

We didn't travel much further after that. As long as we were off clan cat territory, she found no need to. So we grew, never far from home, but never close enough to each other. We lived together, but each in our own little worlds.

That'll never be you. Oh my young kit, those words echo now in my heart as they did through the moors on that very day, because I'm sure as you are quite aware, that is already what I've become. So please, make yourself comfortable in that moss bed of yours because you are in for quite a long story.


	2. Ventures

**Roses have Thorns**

_Wolf of the Dark Lolita_

_-Chapter 1-_

All beginnings . . .

The scent of the Clan cats was forever present when I was a kit; I grew up with it as wrapped around me as my own tail. Many young cats were raised hearing stories and legends about the gruesome cats that roamed the deep forest, but no others had the tales quite so drilled into their heads as my littermates and I. My mother wanted to be certain we would never be taken by the curiosity to roam across those invisible borders. Every so often, I thought I could see a flash of pelts through the trees and the glowing eyes of starved cats, so famished they may even pick off a morsel of a kit such as myself. Pure nonsense, of course, but I it gave me cause to remain unaware of the true nature of clan cats.

My brother Olive of course, being the cat that he was, boasted about his apparent ventures into the territory and went on and on about the encounters he had, setting the scene of his ferocious battles that would have been considered worthy of legend. Though, we were quite aware his ramblings were more tale then truth. My sister, Cinder, had urged him to take us into the forest with him, much to my own dismay, for she wanted to be witness to proof. However, barely two fox lengths in, he was startled by a snapped twig and led us running, tails between our legs. Certain as he was we had been fleeing from a dozen cats, there had been the distinctive scent of a squirrel in the air and my sister and I were not soon to forget that the 'mighty and brave Olive' had been frightened off by a piece of prey. We tended to skip over the fact we had run off just as whole heartedly.

Though, what is most surprising was that, despite my fears, I was the first of my siblings to ever encounter a clan cat face to face.

I recall as though it were merely a lost dream; many of my days as a young cat are quite hazy. My mother only ever watched over us slightly, believing that even as kits we deserved freedom to do as we wished. Freedom, of course, as long as she agreed with it. So, I found myself wandering the precarious outskirts as I had many times before. Though, no cat is to be forever without trouble.

I already thought of myself as a little rogue at the time, knowing one day I would be left to my own devices far away from Olive and Cinder far away in a forest I could call my own. My thoughts would often wander to distant sunny days where the prey may as well announce itself to me. I could recall tales told to me by passing rogues, made all the more fantastic in the eye of a kit's mind. I would become lost in my own little word so often in fact; it was not at all difficult to become lost in the real one at the along with it. At that moment, the paradise had drifted away to and distorted to such a place that only my greatest fears could reflect upon. As I continued to wonder, the mighty oaks had faded away and the undergrowth dwindled until they lay forgotten as a mere memory on the horizon. The grass gave way to the thick and coarse slab of never ending grey; what I now know as twoleg path. Perhaps, if I had turned back at that point, I'd have been able to return my safe patch of territory in the forest, but it would be many moons and seasons until I would return there again. The sounds and smells coated the air, to a point that nothing else was distinguishable. It had grown dark, shadows encasing me so thickly, I had nowhere to run. I knew I was far away from home when the scent hit me, it was only faint and mingled with the foul overtone of twolegs, but I immediately recognized it as that of the mysterious clan cats. I followed it blindly of course, wildly assuming it was a beacon to my familiar home, not noticing as its trail led me deeper into the cracks and alleyways of twoleg place.

The scent drew me closer until it in turn it began to approach me. Shock rippled through my pelt, shaking through me like a leaf bare chill. At that moment all I felt was betrayal, as though the unseen trail I had been following had managed to outsmart me and had left me here defeated. It was at that moment, I first got to look straight into the glowing eyes of a starved clan cat. A glint so powerful that I remember it to this very day.

However, this glint, it was not as ferocious or menacing as I had often spirited. No, it was more akin to a glowing warmth of power that burned alight within. This, my young kit, is what I often think back on as the power of Starclan that is carried on in the heart of each warrior.

The tom's pelt was dark, as though the night sky itself had rained down upon him, and it allowed him to fade into the obscure gloom almost seamlessly. His teeth glinted in the moonlight as his face lifted into a grin. I expected him to eat me up in that instance, and nobody would be to ever hear from me again.

Though, he did open his mouth, but not to bite and to hiss but to speak.

"Now, what would bring you here at the peak of moonhigh?"


End file.
